Rural women, women of color, low-income women are made to suffer the most

Families in Appalachia often face numerous obstacles to accessing basic reproductive health care. The closing of clinics in this part of the country, which extends from northern Georgia through western Pennsylvania, will only make it harder for women to access health services in a region “plagued by generations of deep poverty,” reports Teddy Wilson.

When the Kanawha Surgicenter in Charleston closed on January 17, the Women’s Health Center in Charleston was left as the only abortion clinic in West Virginia.

“Families in Appalachia, a mountainous region that extends from northern Georgia through western Pennsylvania, often face significant obstacles to accessing basic reproductive health care,” says Wilson.

The GOP’s years-long war on women has led to a dramatic number of abortion clinic closures, with at least 162 clinics having been closed or prevented from offering abortion since 2011, according to a report by Bloomberg.